Over the past 10 years, this event has hosted over 1000 leaders from 70 different countries, becoming one of the most important events of its kind set in Europe. Always bringing fresh ideas on how to maximise protection in the businesses and avoid counterfeit, one thing that can be relied on is the quality of the Whitepapers created every year ahead of the Summit by the event organizer Legal IQ.

This year, they interviewed brand protection experts from the three most counterfeited industries: Fashion, Film and Sporting Goods. The goal was to gather an understanding of how they fight counterfeit activity in their business. The Fashion sector was represented by Victoria Swedjemark of Björn Borg AB; while talking about the Film and Sporting Goods industries were Kieron Sharp (Federation Against Copyright Theft) and Dr Jochen Schaefer, Legal Counsel of World Confederation of Sporting Goods.

According to them there are 5 areas you need to possess complete understanding of in order to protect and maintain the integrity of your products: Strategy, Framework, Execution, Pitfalls, Status. These are some of the tips they shared:

1. Strategy: The first and, perhaps, most important pillar is to have a strong and well-defined strategy. From taking a pragmatic approach when dealing with the issue, to being sure you have your rights protected at the source, there’s no one single defined path to follow here. You should find the strategy that best fits to your brand. However, all the interviewed agreed on one point: you should employ the right legal partners, people “who understand the online environment and use intelligence and information in the right way”.
2. Framework, or how you should organise your strategy. Firstly, decide what your primary brand is. Secondly, monitor activities, learn from previous experiences (of your own and of others that may have been in similar situations) and file for trademark where necessary.
3. Execution: a constant monitoring is basic in any brand protection strategy, always keep in mind that your goal is to obtain evidence that proves criminal enterprises are doing something illegal. Also, do not forget that if you are operating in different territories, your strategy should vary in accordance with the law of these territories.
4. Pitfalls: Knowing which battles are worth going after and being able to get the timing and balance of protection right are important considerations. You may encounter difficulties throughout the processes, but being aware of them and being able to define them before they happen will surely help your goals.
5. Status: The importance of the brand protection is an issue that is gaining increased awareness by most brands. Recent government and parliament recognition helps to protect the status of your assets or content, fighting against counterfeit and piracy.

With an estimated magnitude of over $600 billion (and growing), the trafficking of counterfeit goods worldwide is constantly an important issue for brands all over the world. When working out how to minimise brand protection abuse, every company should count with a strong brand protection strategy that defends its assets from the very beginning. So when creating and developing this strategy it is extremely important to deal with the right legal experts, who understand what your brand needs are, what to monitor and when to take legal actions against infringers.

ICANN, the regulatory body of the internet’s domain name system (DNS), recently issued a warning to the public revealing that it’s systems were allegedly hacked by an opportunistic cyber-criminal. Having issued a public warning stating that usernames and passwords were retrieved by an unauthorised person, ICANN urged the online community to stay vigilant and immediately change any saved passwords as a pre-emptive security measure.

The following statement was issued by the organisation on the 5th of August,

‘ICANN has reason to believe that within the last week, usernames/email addresses and encrypted passwords for profile accounts created on ICANN.org website were obtained by an unauthorised person’

Whilst investigations continue, it is strongly recommended that all subscribers to ICANN’s website reset their password. They further emphasised that using the same username and password on other online accounts increases security risks. In essence, It is highly recommended to avoid using the same password and usernames for different online accounts. This security approach applies to both professional and personal accounts.

As part of any organisation’s digital brand protection strategy, dotNice further reiterate the importance of using unique encrypted usernames and passwords for all company accounts. As enterprises become more and more aware of cyber-security and potential threats, starting off with basic security measures should be enforced throughout any business, whether large or small.

The security breach comes at a crucial time for ICANN as plans are underway for the US government to relinquish it’s oversight of the DNS and relegate the responsibility to ICANN. This handover is expected to happen in March 2016 when Fadi Chehadé, President and CEO of ICANN, plans to step down from his position.

Over the past few weeks ICANN has caused quite a stir to businesses and trademark owners alike after announcing it was considering a proposal to force commercial registrants’ to display their identity when registering new domains.
This new proposal would see an end to commercial domain registrants’ ability to shield and hide their identity and rendering their registration details accessible on WHOIS platforms. It comes as no surprise that privacy campaigners are angered by the proposal.

ICANN released the ‘Initial Report on the Privacy & Proxy Services Accreditation Issues Policy Development Process’ on the 5th May, to allow for public comment on some of the points addressed. Some of the key questions raised in the report asked whether or not commercial entities registering domain names for economic and financial purposes should be exempt from privacy rights. Further questions examined what measures and policies would be required to enforce the contactability of the registrants. Furthermore, the report also asked to what extent should full WHOIS reference details be disclosed? The time frame for public comment ended on the 7th of July and at present we are waiting for press release on the report’s findings.

It comes as no surprise that many trademark owners are perturbed by ICANN controversial proposal. The digital landscape is fraught with potential threats to both personal and professional security. Many businesses enforce a policy of proxy registrations as an integral part of their brand protection strategy. The Online Abuse Prevention Initiative, a collective of activists for civil rights and internet anonymity, contend that the proposal would benefit and encourage cyber-criminals, online harassers and internet stalkers allowing them access to the personal details of women and LGTBQ campaigners. They argue it would deprive domain owners of their privacy and security. This type of activity, known as doxing allows confidential data of internet users to be exposed on the web.

Not all enterprises are put off by ICANN’s proposal. Naturally enough, the US entertainment industry is a strong supporter of the proposal as access to registration data will allow them to pursue copyright and trademark infringers with greater efficiency and cost-effectiveness. It would save the industry millions in legal enforcement. For the moment we will have to wait and see what decision ICANN will reach on this matter. Stay tuned for more updates.

In 2012 the most powerful man in the world, US president Barack obama, fell victim to cybersquatting/ domain squatting. Before the Presidents advisors could announce that they would be turning the remainder of reelection campaign funds into a new nonprofit, Organising for Action, savvy cybersquatters saw the great financial potential in securing the domain name first. They claimed organisingforaction.com and organisingforaction.org beating the president to the punch!

2. Bank of America

One of the worlds most lucrative banks, Bank of America was involved in a high profile case of cybersquatting when opportunistic domain squatters saw the potential in strategically buying domain names for possible future bank mergers and subsequently selling them on eBay.The domains for sale included bankofamericamerrilllynch.com and bofaml.com.

3. Youtube

Global giant, Youtube was targeted by typo-squatters in a highly publicised corporate typo-squatting case. The domain name yuube.com was bought with the sole purpose of targeting YouTube users, anticipating that a large amount of YouTube traffic would mis-spell the domain name. When a user accidentally typed yuube.com they would be redirected to a malicious website or page.

4.American Express

A high profile case of phishing occurred when fraudulent emails purportedly from Global corporation, American Express were sent to an unknown number of recipients. A simple DNS change could have been made to thwart this spoofed email, but American Express failed to make any changes.

5.Burger King

Burger King fell victim to a bad case of brand-jacking when the company’s logo was hi-jacked and replaced with an advertisement of it’s main competitor, McDonalds. Promptly after this, a fraudulent ‘news’ story followed purporting that Burger King had been sold to its rival Mc Donalds as a result of persistent drug use of its employees. The hack lasted for approximately an hour until the twitter account was suspended.

There has been much talk over the last few years of the importance of digital marketing, how to create online marketing strategies, how to grow your online client base and following, how to build a brand’s online presence and how to conduct customer service via digital channels like twitter and Facebook. However there is very little conversation on the topic of how such brands’ can be protected once they have been established online. Businesses allocate massive marketing budgets to drive their digital presence. It would naturally make sense to safeguard your brand after so much capital has been invested. Some of the topics we shall be discussing over the coming weeks and months will cover the preventative measures your business can take to avoid such risks as brand reputation, revenue loss and of course legal litigation.

A key area of discussion over the next few months will focus on Domain Portfolio Management. Over the past year major developments and changes have rocked the world of domain names with ICANN , (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers) releasing some 1,500 new domain names.
For instance, the music industry has just introduced .band as a new domain name available to online vendors. For yoga enthusiasts and teachers, the domain name .yoga was recently released; A plethora of new and unique domain names including .organic, .buzz, .beer even .wtf have recently been added to the domain name reservoir. This development can present great opportunities for brands endeavouring to expand and grow their online presence. It will allow enterprises to further develop targeted personalised marketing campaigns to new prospective clients and existing client bases. Needless to say, such transformations in the global domain registerary also possess threats to existing businesses. Opportunistic domain squatters may pre-emptively purchase a number of domain names that they imagine would hold equitable value to global brands. The news that Ashton Kutcher recently purchased a number of domain names for his baby daughter before she was even born, highlights the growing importance of reserving a domain name and also the growing awareness of online intellectual property. Brands must immediately consider how their domains are being managed, if at all!

Opportunities for cybersquatters are rapidly diminishing, because most businesses now know that securing domain names is a high priority. This has been happening many years and global brands are only now waking up to the extent of this problem. Companies that have won back their names from alleged cybersquatters following rulings from WIPO include Christian Dior, Nike, Deutsche Bank and Microsoft. Brands need to be aware of not only their current markets but also their potential markets. They need to protect themselves in both prospective future markets in addition to existing markets they currently operate in. Staying one step ahead is of critical importance.

Another issue our blog will discuss over the coming months is the problem of
Typo-squatting. Typo-squatting is similar to cybersquatting and is based on the probability that a certain number of Internet users will mis-spell or incorrectly type the name of a Web site (or actually its URL) when surfing the Web. For example, a common misspelling or a foreign language spelling. Back in 2006 to 2008, there existed an typo-squatted variant of Google listed as ‘goggle.com’. Landing on this fraudulent website would automatically cause the domain to download computer viruses and other destructive software including the dreaded antispyware program SpySheriff.

Another potential problem facing online brands is Phishing. Phishing involves opportunistic cybercriminals installing malicious software or stealing personal information off of your computer. Like fishing, cybercriminals essentially ‘Phish’ for important data through creating fraudulent email messages, websites, and phone calls. A highly publicised instance of this occurred in 2008 when an online fraudster claimed to be the renowned actress Scarlett Johansson and set up a fake competition whereby she ‘offered herself’ in a threesome with two of the competition winners. The object of the online imposter was to harvest email addresses of the unknowing competition participants.

Another fast evolving form of cyber-crime is brand jacking. Brand-jacking is a particular form of cyber crime whereby someone assumes the online identity of a person or brand with the intention of stealing the organisation or persons brand equity. An example of this happened to US Republican Sarah Palin and US President Barack Obama whereby falsified Facebook pages were created to damage their online presence. Furthermore, in 2006 a fake advert for a Starbucks Frappuccino was devised by an anonymous brand jacker who sought to damage the brands reputation. The objective was to highlight the contrast between consumption and poverty. Such parodies can ultimately destroy a brands equity as social media facilitates the rapid and viral dissemination of such fraudulent material.

In many cases the examples quoted above could be avoided if certain steps had been taken to carefully and thoroughly protect the brands listed. It often occurs that SMB’s and large corporations find themselves having to take costly legal action to fix what originally was a preventable problem. Enormous costs can be incurred if enterprises fail to implement and revise their digital brand protection strategy. In the year 2000, global brand Kodak won back its rights to kodak.ru after a long, tedious litigation process lasting a year and involving some twenty lawsuits. A further example of this occurred when multinational corporation Verizon won a $33 Million dollar lawsuit retrieving it’s domain name myverizonwireless.com from domain-quatters. These global brands had the financial means to pursue such costly litigation, many scaling brands establishing their online presence and scaling their business would not have such capital available.

Whether you’re an SMB or a large multinational, whether you work in the Tech industry or the entertainment industry, the same principles apply. Being prepared is key to guarantee your brands online presence and digital footprint is safeguarded.

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